


a shield of achilles

by Siria



Category: Thoughtcrimes
Genre: Community: cliche_bingo, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-25
Updated: 2009-07-25
Packaged: 2017-10-03 19:14:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The NSA doesn't often send agents out into the field. Its purpose is cryptology and cryptanalysis, tracking crime and terrorism over phone lines and across the internet and through lines of tightly-written code; its analysts solve crimes from behind the four grey walls of their cubicles, coffee growing cold at their elbow while their fingers dance over keyboards so well-used that the lettering has worn away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a shield of achilles

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to dogeared and sheafrotherdon for advice. Written for cliche_bingo for the square 'vulnerability.'

The NSA doesn't often send agents out into the field. Its purpose is cryptology and cryptanalysis, tracking crime and terrorism over phone lines and across the internet and through lines of tightly-written code; its analysts solve crimes from behind the four grey walls of their cubicles, coffee growing cold at their elbow while their fingers dance over keyboards so well-used that the lettering has worn away. The cases that involve Brendan and the handful of other field agents are the ones whose mission reports are marked _classified_ and _sensitive_ with half the text blacked out even when destined for internal agency circulation, the ones that the public tends not to hear about unless things go very wrong—even before Brendan ended up with an honest-to-God psychic for a partner, he was trained to have the myriad different skills you need to survive those kinds of situations.

None of his teachers ever quite managed to get rid of his clumsiness—the peculiar, innate knack that meant at the end of an average day Brendan's ties were stained with mustard, his knuckles stained with blue ink and his temple or his forearms dotted with band aids or bruises—but they have taught him, amongst other things, how to disarm a bomb or a person wielding a knife with relative ease, to speak four languages and read a couple more, to aim straight and fire clean and waltz with something close to elegance. His resumé is kind of weird (to be honest, it looks more than a little like those mission reports marked _classified_ and _sensitive_ with half the text blacked out), but it speaks of years spent learning how to be prepared.

He knows procedure and probabilities and his muscles carry the memory of how to move. He's also a strong, six-two white guy with a college education, a badge and a gun. Brendan is used to confidence.

But then there's Freya. No one's written the manual that can prepare you to work with a partner like her—someone who fell into a nightmare when she was sixteen and woke up when she was twenty-five; who's read more works of classic literature than most of Brendan's college professors ever had, but who is astonished by high-speed internet and the existence of Wikipedia; someone who studies stubbornly for her GED on the weekends and who can chastise him for even thinking that he's bored when she's reviewing the social studies section.

Freya's the best partner Brendan's ever had, and as a team they have one of the highest solve rates in the entire USIC. Out in the field, he has no need to second-guess her; she knows what he knows, and he's learned to read her body language as clearly as if he can read her mind, too. But the thing is—the thing is that he _can't_ read her mind, but she knows his, and there are days when the simple fact that there's nothing of him that he can hide from her is damn close to terrifying. This isn't the kind of scared he's used to—this knowing that there's no way he can fight back—and it's weirdly humbling. It unnerves him, and maybe even makes him feel a little guilty, because he knows that Freya would never use his thoughts against him. Tease him for his near-constant mental medley of classic rock and 70s cartoon theme songs, maybe, but she's never used the Pimple Incident from high school against Brendan when she's angry with him, or taunted him the image of Jess's ring, a pale curve of gold abandoned on the kitchen worktop next to a note.

Freya could use it, but she won't, and maybe there's something in Brendan that feels a little sheepish at that—at feeling grateful for power she willingly keeps potential rather than kinetic—at knowing, without any need for psychic powers, that there are guys in the agency who think less of him for relying so much on a female partner. But here's the thing: Brendan would feel like a dick if he wasn't grateful to Freya, truly grateful, and not just for the ability to sense a bullet coming before a shot's been fired. He's grateful that she's loyal enough to him to be willing to take a bullet for him; enough his friend to tell him when he has wasabi on his shirt and ketchup on his tie, to sing along to crappy pop music on the radio with him and to listen to him talk when he's feeling sad or pissed or both and he doesn't know why. (Freya always knows why, but she's smart enough to let Brendan figure it out for himself.)

The world is a pretty scary place, and for all that he loves his job, there are days when it _sucks_—days when Brendan wasn't fast enough, wasn't strong enough, wasn't smart enough, and someone gets hurt because of that—but those days are always better because Freya's right there with him. She can be a little scary, sure—even scarier first thing in the office, before either of them have had their coffee and are seeing 8am in the faded sepia tones of a caffeine-withdrawal headache—but it's taken Brendan fourteen months of working with her to realise that so many things would be worse without her.

This is the thing: he could be safe by himself, but he'd be alone, and there are worse things than knowing that you've got an Achilles' heel. Freya walks past his desk, a stack of paperwork grasped in one hand, extra-large coffee in the other and a doughnut clenched between her teeth. _Penny for 'em_, Brendan thinks at her, loud enough that he knows he'll get through her blocking, and grins obnoxiously at Freya when she rolls her eyes and slumps down at her desk. She's clearly dreading the Monday-morning paperwork slog as much as he is—Brendan's playing with a Slinky rather than fill in Form F1-49Z, which sucks even more than Form G5-78D—but maybe they'll get a call soon which will get them out from behind their cubicle walls, out into the bright spring morning. And Brendan—Brendan's looking forward to that, because here's the newest skill he's learned: how to let someone else have his back.


End file.
